Thanks for the Ride
by bec3265
Summary: Alice Munro's 'Thanks for the Ride' from Lois' point of veiw. Two young men come to a small Canadian town in search of a good time. Lois and her friend oblige. Explores the thoughts and motives behind the enigmatic character of Lois...


**Literature Unit 4**

**Outcome One**

_Rebecca Allinson_

My friend Adelaide and I were sitting in the backseat of a big blue car. It was covered in dirt and dried mud, just like everything in this place was. The inside was all grey. There was a little rip in the vinyl seat that I was gradually making bigger with my finger. I looked at the two boys in the front seat. I hadn't looked at them when I got in the car. I didn't want to give them that satisfaction. The blond one, the one who had whistled at me, I suppose some girls would call him handsome, but he reminded me of a pig Mrs Blakely used to have. His name was George. The other one, Dick, the driver, my 'date', was smaller and darker. He didn't talk much.

I told them to drive around to my house so I could get changed. I didn't want to go around all night in my slacks. Dick asked me where I wanted to go after that. I didn't really care. I knew what it would lead too. It always did. These city boys were all the same. They came down, took you around, did what they wanted with you and expected you to be grateful. George just confirmed my thoughts by saying we needed to get a bottle.

"You know where to get one?"

Adelaide and I said yes at the same time. Of course we did. You learn at an early age in Mission Creek what's what and where to get it. Adelaide smiled at me but I pretended not to see. I kept picking at the hole I was making in the seat. I got a strange sense of pleasure from doing that. She lent closer to me and whispered to me to ask Dick in so she could talk to George alone. I shrugged. It didn't matter much to me, but I asked him to come in anyway. I thought I would have some fun. Pretend it was like a date. See him squirm then.

He did squirm too. I could feel him start as soon as I opened wide the door and said, "I would like you to meet my family." Momma came bustling into the room, drying her hands on a dishtowel, which she flung into a chair. I noticed, with the eyes of someone who is looking at something familiar to them through the eyes of a stranger, how frail and tall she was, and her teeth, they looked like blue-white china, the long chords in her neck and how they trembled as she spoke. Dick started to go red while he said:

"How do you do?"

I left them there, just pausing behind the door to hear my mother start gushing over his car. She always did that. I almost felt sorry for the boy. Almost.

I went upstairs to my room and picked out my green and yellow dress that my aunt in London had sent me. Momma liked to tell people that I'd gone over there and got it myself, but I hadn't. It had just come in the mail one day, all stiff and shiny and it was the second best dress I owned. I wanted to wear something nice, to show those boys that there was more to me, to us, than just what they were after. I wanted them to realise, but they probably wouldn't. I made myself up, and dug my high- heels out of my closet and put my rhinestones on my fingers. I admired myself in the mirror. I was thin – boys like that, and pale – I'd covered that up with powder.

I went back downstairs in time to hear Dick say no to whatever it was Momma had just asked him. She started on her usual spiel about my dress and London as soon as I walked into the room. I wondered if he believed it. We walked out, and we had to go past my grandmother. I tensed as we did, wondering what she would come out with this time, if anything. As Dick passed her she stuck out her wobbly chin, her mouth trembled open and she said to him:

"You can do what you like with my granddaughter, but you be careful. And you know what I mean!" He did, I did, and Grandma sure did. Momma was the only one who pretended not to. She pushed Grandma behind her, smiled tightly at Dick and raised her eyebrows in that funny way she did and tried to brush it off. I saw her mouth at him not to mind, "Second childhood." I turned and walked stiffly out the front, to hear my mother whispering to Dick not to let me mope, and I'm a good girl, really. Grandma knew what was going on better than my own mother. The old surge of annoyance at her welled up in me again as it had so many times before, but I suppressed it as usual.

"Did you want to go to a dance or something?" Dick asked me as we reached the car. I didn't care. We both, no – everyone, knew what this night was leading to. Why pretend it wasn't?

"But you got all dressed up –"

"I always get dressed up on a Saturday night," I said, my voice carrying the scorn I felt. Not just for him, but for my mother as well. She always indulged them and thanked them like they were doing us this huge favour. Then I laughed. I couldn't help it – the act we were all playing, the looks on Dicks face while he was in my house, my grandmother's knowingness. Dick started laughing too, so we went back to the car laughing as if we were friends, but we were not.

We drove out to the Brown's farmhouse. Adelaide suggested it. Mrs Brown didn't like me at all, not after that incident with her nephew last summer. I didn't say anything though. She made it clear that we weren't welcome there, because of me, but I didn't care. I didn't want to be there anyways. So we drove down the end of the lane and stopped there, passing the bottle back and forth, back and forth in that ritual of back-and front-seat seduction

Dick didn't do much more than put his arm around me for along while and I wondered if it was his first time. Usually they were a lot faster than this. Finally he asked if I wanted to go for a walk. Of course George thought this was the best idea all night.

"Don't hurry back!" I could here Adelaide laughing in the back, and I looked at her with derision. She actually enjoyed this.

We walked along a wagon track close to the bush. The fields were as they always were this time of year: moonlit, chilly and blowing. Dick seemed annoyed and said: "I had quite a talk with your mother."

"I can imagine." I truly could. She was like that with anyone I brought home, especially young men. It was a mixture of amusement and annoyance and frustration for me.

"She told me about that guy you went out with last summer." I corrected him and said it was this summer. He disagreed then asked if he was engaged.

Yes. Tom was engaged. What difference did it make? Engaged or not, they still all wanted the same thing.

"Did he like you better? Was that it?" I nearly snorted. How naïve was he?

"No, I wouldn't say he liked me. He liked Momma and the kids okay but he didn't like me. _Like me_, what's that?" I was faintly curious what this privileged city boy's idea of _liking_ was.

"Well, he went out with you-"

I cut him off quickly, how mistaken he was. "He just went around with me for the summer. That's what those guys from the beach always do. They come down here to the dances and get a girl to go around with. For the summer. They always do. How do I know he didn't _like_ me," I said, "he said I was always bitching. You have to act grateful to those guys, you know, or they say you're bitching."

Dick looked startled at this speech, but I couldn't hold it in anymore. This had been brewing inside me for years. He asked me if I'd liked Tom.

"Oh sure! I should, shouldn't I? I should just get down on my knees and thank him. That's what my mother does. He brings her a cheap old spotted elephant-"

Dick interrupted me with more questions. I didn't mind. I didn't have to answer. Only if I wanted to. That's what Grandma always told me: Only if I wanted to. I ended up striking him on the face. It was a relief. He was being so pretentious and we were both quite drunk. I was about to slap him again, I could see him ready to stop me, but then the moment passed and we kissed. I laughed at the absurdity and meaninglessness of this.

"Isn't it funny? You know, all winter all the girls do is talk about last summer, talk and talk about those guys, and I bet you those guys have forgotten even what there names were-"

I usually didn't talk this much to these guys, but I was beginning to think this one might be different. He actually seemed interested in me. Me. All those questions...but then he confirmed my opinion of him and all men, with one simple whispered sentence.

"Isn't there some place we can go?"

I took him to a barn in the next field. I'd been there before with a few guys. The owner never kept any animals in there but it still smelt like them - that damp mouldy smell. It suited our purposes. We were animals too.

I pretended to sleep on the drive back into town. I didn't want to hear the untruths that would pour like sweet smelling sewerage out of his mouth. _Come and see you again – Remember – Love- _I did not want to hear any of it. None of it was true.

George and Adelaide woke up as we came back into town. Adelaide wanted food. George didn't so Dick drove around to my place. I straightened my skirt and as I was about to get out he leaned in to kiss me but I must have stiffened because he stopped. I hated that fake and theatrical ritual that meant absolutely nothing. George asked Adelaide if she lived near here. She did, so he suggested she just walk home from here. That angered me like nothing else had tonight. How dare he? He didn't even have the decency to drive her home. But what could you expect? We were of no more value to them. They'd had what they'd come for and now they were leaving, like they always did, and like they always would.

I called out. I knew my voice was loud and angry and abusive. That's how I wanted it to be. Maybe then they'd realise.

"Thanks for the ride!"


End file.
